The voice of trucker Scott Carlson dominates this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, detailing a little piece of equipment he’s got in his truck, as do the rest of the trucks in the fleet he's driven for for 17 years out of New York state. This little device, he knows, likely saved his life last week.

The equipment? A simple carbon monoxide detector. An exhaust leak from his diesel-powered APU happened to have broken in the exact wrong spot, just below a vent for fresh cab air. Fortunately for him, the fleet’s trucks had been outfitted years earlier with detectors (Safe-T-Alert by RV-centric manufacturer MTI Industries) hardwired for power from the trucks' batteries and mounted low on the sleeper wall down near where Carlson lays his head when asleep -- recommended for these kinds of applications. The company's fleetwide investment in the units followed a leased owner-operator]s similar situation, though caused by a leak in the truck's primary exhaust system, that sent him to a four-day hospital stay. The consequences of carbon monoxide poisoning can be much worse than that.